The tenth of December, and my twelfth birthday came. Mother gave me a book which she’d secreted among her things. For the first time since our fall her cheeks and eyes glowed with pleasure. ‘This belonged to my mother, and now you shall have it.’ The book was leather-bound, old and very battered, entitled Downland Flora. All the plants of the chalk downs were in there, the colour plates shielded by paper so translucent that the images beneath were visible as if through soft rain.
Mr Dawes called on us. He carried a box containing a pudding and three Christmas crackers. ‘My sister will come on Christmas Eve with a duck, Mrs Calvert. A few vegetables and you’ll do handsomely.’ Miss Dawes duly came and we gave her fulsome salivating thanks. Later that same evening, there was a knock at the door. I opened it but there was only darkness outside. Then I saw a paper bag, and in it a bottle of beer. As I picked up the bag the gate clicked, and I looked up to see Lucy Horne vanish behind the hedge.
That first Christmas Day we polished our shoes, brushed our coats and went to church. We weren’t going to sit in our hole like mice. We slid to the end of one of the back pews and stared straight ahead. Behind me Daddy’s strong voice rang out in the bass variation to ‘O Come All Ye Faithful’. O come, Daddy, O come. Edward sang the hymn loudly in Latin as he’d been taught at school. Adeste fideles, laete triumphantes. We left the church without looking back or stopping, even though Miss Dawes blurted, ‘Mrs Calvert, Merry—’ as we passed. We walked on down the lane, and when it came to the turn for the Absaloms we halted, all three of us. At the Stour House there’d have been dinner waiting for us, guests gathering in the hall. Cries of delight at our tree with its glass balls as big as a man’s hand and red as a man’s blood, its tiny brass bells, its lights glimmering through angel hair like stars through cirrus cloud.
Mother clasped her hands together. ‘I can’t go back to the cottage yet. Not today.’
‘No. A Christmas walk is in order.’ Edward was using his stout voice. ‘We can always have dinner later.’ And we strode on as if we were normal people, not creatures so clemmed that our stomachs were wringing inside us.
We went all the way out of the village to where the land spread out and up towards Beacon Hill. It was dry underfoot and Edward and I ran to and fro along the track, again and again, for the pleasure of being in the open, of being back on the hillside we’d known since we were able to walk. Edward inhaled lungfuls of downland air. ‘I don’t know why we didn’t come out here before, instead of staying cooped up in the cottage!’ But I knew. It was because so much had become forbidden to us. Even as we ran and panted and laughed, there was a sense of truancy.
We helped Mother over the stile. Her legs had got so thin that her stockings were wrinkled at the ankles. We held her hands and pulled her to the top. Edward sang, ‘Fal-de-ree, fal-de-ra, my knapsack on my back.’
At the top it was silent. We sat on a hillock that Edward said was made in the Iron Age. Then one by one we lay down on the soft springy turf among the dry rabbit droppings. We were warm from the climb, and the weather was mild. I tried to identify some of the downland flora but only managed buck’s-horn plantain, a humble rosette of pointed leaves. It was edible, according to my new book, so Edward and I nibbled like rabbits. Like bitter parsley, we decided. Then I rolled onto my back and stared up at the bands of still winter cloud that blurred into the blue. A long time of peace elapsed.
Edward touched my cheek. ‘Ellen. You were nearly asleep.’
In January I grew out of my boots. Edward put newspaper in his so that I could wear them to school. He found a pair of wooden clogs in the outhouse. When I came home we changed shoes. But soon it became clear from Edward’s pigeon-toed walk that his feet had grown too. He went to look in the cash box under Mother’s bed.
I went out into the garden. My feet slid over the ruts at the edge of the vegetable bed. I stamped and blew out a plume of white breath like a fire-eater. I tried to sing, but it turned into a sob. Edward came outside again. ‘I’ve been thinking.’
‘Oh, Edward.’ I knew something was going to happen.
‘There’s not enough, Ell, not for three of us to go on like this—’
‘Don’t leave us. We’ll die without you—’
‘Nonsense. You’ll do very well on the parish money, and then—’
‘Where will you go?’ I was crying.
‘Southampton.’
‘Oh, God—’
‘There’s a fortune to be made on the steamers, everyone knows that. And adventure. Who knows what I’ll send back? Come on, Ellen. You’ll live like kings.’
‘Edward. Oh, Edward.’
He turned away. ‘I must tell Mother.’
I wiped my face on my sleeve. My cheeks and eyes felt raw. I heard Mother give a broken sort of moan, a sound like a roosting hen.
In the morning I felt the first stubble on his chin graze my temple, his bony jaw and ear as he bent lower to whisper, ‘Keep Mother safe and study hard.’
‘Good luck, Edward. Don’t forget us.’
‘It’s for you I’m going, my dearest Ellen. So that’s hardly likely.’
He set off in his clogs down the lane. I watched him until he turned the corner. It was agony, but I had to, in case he looked back. He didn’t look back.
Three weeks later came a letter. With a stamp like a tiny stained-glass window, there were so many colours in it. Dear Ellen, it read, they used to call this land Darien. We have all been sick from the Atlantic swell. We are bound for Puntarenas and thence to San Francisco and then my hopes are for the Far East though it will lie in a westerly direction for me.
Mother seized the envelope, raked the inside with her forefinger. ‘How could he send no money?’
I handed her the banknote, five American dollars, which had been enclosed in the fold of the letter. ‘In future we can get it from the company. That’s what he says.’
9
SPRING CAME, hot and late, and then a cloudless summer. Mother and I walked to Waltham and took the bus to Southampton, and made our way, at two in the afternoon, to the shipping office of Raymond & Rose, where we sat on hard chairs in the blessed cool and dimness of the wood-panelled room.
‘So.’ The man behind the desk turned the pages of a ledger. ‘Edward Calthrop.’
‘Calvert.’ My mother spoke sharply. ‘He said his hopes were for the Far East.’
But I didn’t even know if that was true. I could imagine him in front of the mirror, thrusting out one leg, shading his eyes from an imaginary tropical sun, and saying, ‘Edward Calvert, who took ship for the Far East.’
‘Calvert, Calvert.’ The man turned another page. ‘Ah. Here he is. Siam, ladies. Bangkok, Swatow, Hong Kong. Rice out, general cargo on return. On our Queen of the Straits.’
My mother folded her hands together so that they could each comfort the other. She seemed unable to speak so I did it for her.
‘It’s simply that we haven’t heard from him for so long.’
The man nodded. He knew what it meant, for a seaman’s family, to hear from him. ‘I’m sorry. He gave us no authority to stop back a portion of his wage.’ He dipped his nib in the well, pecked at the page. ‘There,’ he said, with satisfaction. This had been an easy task. ‘A note. Family enquired. It’s all I can do.’
I inked the holes in my stockings but when I sat down at my desk the holes slid to reveal crescents of white skin. Like the clock face which showed the lunar phases; Daddy sliding the brass lever to make the moon wax and wane, wax and wane. Temporarily, perhaps just for ten seconds, my father had lost his wits. Shot himself in the heart and got out of everything. No more pain and certainly no hunger.
‘You’ve got half-moons peeping out on your legs,’ said Lucy.
‘I know.’
‘You want to do them patches bigger. Or get yourself some darning wool like everyone else.’
If 2a equals 10 what is a? Clearly a is for asinine, Miss Yarnold. Can there be a person alive who cannot see that a is 5? Bu
t yes, there are such persons – John Blunden and Daniel Corey for two, and Lucy for a third, and others, who all cry in protest, ‘But, Miss. We’ve gone an’ learnt two fives was ten. And now you says it’s two a’s that make ten!’
I met Miss Yarnold’s eyes and saw a glint of tears.
Lucy nudged me. ‘Or you could try soot. It spreads better.’
One Sunday in autumn I left the house, leaving Mother unfolding three yards of calico on the kitchen table. There’d been a discount on five yards but we couldn’t run to five. Nonetheless she’d galvanized herself, taken herself to the haberdasher’s in Waltham, and she was going to make drawers for us: ‘The light’s good, darling,’ she’d pleaded, but I was too hungry to sit sewing. ‘I’m so slim now,’ she was saying gaily as I swung the door closed, ‘I can squeeze an extra pair in, I’m sure.’
That gay tone I hated even more than the pleading.
I went by the back lanes even though they were wet and my left shoe leaked. The clouds broke late in the afternoon and I stopped by a field in the low sunlight and leaned on the gate, the field a wet, vivid green, and a large, pale cow rocking her head by the fence halfway down the hill. Lucy Horne was in the next field, leaning on the fence watching the cow. Beside her was a boy with a shock of walnut hair. When he sprang up onto the fence I recognized him as Daniel Corey. Before I could move they saw me.
‘Ellen,’ Lucy called, ‘come here.’
I could have darted on down the lane, pretended I hadn’t heard. I would have been hidden by the hedge in a second. But I was lonely.
Daniel was at the top of the fence when I reached them. He was wearing an enormous pair of breeches, so long that the knee cuffs came almost to his ankles. He didn’t turn his head or say hello, just swung each leg over and sat on the top rail. ‘Dorc,’ he was saying. ‘Ready, Dorc.’
‘He’s going to get up on Dorcas, if she’ll let him.’ Lucy grinned at me. It was a sight. She had so many top teeth missing.
The cow stood, still rocking her head although there weren’t any flies. Daniel perched his feet on the rail below the top, leaped up into the air, where he seemed to hover for a moment before falling deftly with his knees each side of the withers of the cow, who did not move. Lucy squeaked. ‘Good Dorc,’ Daniel breathed.
Dorcas had deep folds on her pale neck. Her muzzle was the colour of the lining in my mother’s kid gloves.
‘She’s beautiful, int she,’ said Lucy.
‘What would the farmer say?’ I whispered. I didn’t want to startle Dorcas.
‘She’s Daniel’s. Well, his dad’s. Do you fancy coming to ours for tea, Ellen?’
Lucy lived at the far end of the village street, on top of a high bank. I had always known there were cottages up there, but had never mounted the brick steps that led to them. Now I followed Lucy and Daniel up, placing my feet carefully, for the light was going.
Outside Lucy’s door we took our muddy shoes off and went into a kitchen where a gas lamp fizzed on the table and a man and a woman were packing eggs into cones of newspaper.
‘Ellen, this is my dad and my nan,’ Lucy said. ‘Nan and Dad, this is Ellen.’
‘Three dozen and five,’ said the woman, without lifting her eyes. ‘Excuse us, dear. And six, makes three and a half dozen.’ She placed the newspaper cone into a wicker basket in the middle of the table. Lucy began a long, thorough bout of coughing.
‘George Horne,’ said the man, who was as slight and dark as Lucy, raising his voice over the noise Lucy was making. ‘How do, miss. And four dozen,’ as he added another cone to the basket.
Lucy’s cough tailed off into a deep sigh. ‘Oh, lor, oh lor.’
‘Do you want the linctus, dear?’ said her grandmother, without turning her head.
‘Nope. Don’t do any blimmin good.’ Lucy went to the oven and pulled out a metal tray, tutted at what she saw. ‘You didn’t turn them.’
‘We can’t think of everything,’ her father said. ‘And four and a half.’
I realized I had not returned their greeting. ‘Good evening, Mrs Horne, and Mr Horne.’ I was going to add some pleasantry but the pies were there in front of me, lying in rows, the back ones dark brown, the front ones pale. It didn’t matter; I was gobbling up the smell alone. My stomach fluttered, and I gasped through lips that were suddenly numb. As Lucy turned to look at me I grabbed the door handle and ducked out into the garden. By the path I retched, the dusk abruptly deepened and I sank to my knees. The stone of the path was cool and rough on my forehead.
A clink of knives and forks, and the gas light very low. Lucy and her grandmother were sitting near the stove, tea towels on their laps. Lucy was sewing. And I, I realized, was sprawled under a blanket, taking up the whole of the couch. The embarrassment was instant: I struggled into a sitting position and saw Mr Horne and Daniel Corey eating at the table. They’d been joined by another man with a square face in shadow. Daniel paused in his chewing but didn’t turn his head. Lucy’s grandmother held out a cup of tea. ‘Start with this, dear, and see how you go on.’
My eyes drifted to a lone pie, a golden unburnt one, on a plate edged with purple painted pansies. I couldn’t imagine getting it into my stomach.
Lucy noticed. ‘We could put it in a bag for you, Ellen, if you don’t fancy it now.’
The tea was hot, barely milked, and as sweet as syrup. I held it in my mouth, afraid that I would retch again, and swallowed it in tiny scalding increments. Lucy sat down next to me and continued with her sewing. Her grandmother took a jug of gravy to the table and poured it over the men’s helpings. They had mountains of mashed potato next to their pies and the gravy splashed over the crags and left high, steaming lakes. ‘Capital, Betty,’ the square-faced man said, digging his fork into the mash. He was holding the fork in a strange pincer grip between thumb and forefinger. He met my eyes and lifted the fork as one might a glass, in salutation. He was missing the remaining three fingers on his right hand. I realized also that he had no pie on his plate.
‘Evening, Miss Calvert,’ he said.
‘This is Mr Kennet,’ Lucy’s grandmother said.
I took another hot gulp of tea. ‘How do you do, Mr Kennet.’
The man gave one slow blink and returned to his conversation with Mr Horne. ‘Twin lambs.’ He shook his head. ‘Back last spring. Dead in their caul.’
‘And the pair weighing ten pounds,’ said Mr Horne. ‘I’d have shot that dog.’
‘The vicar’s lurcher, and all,’ said Mrs Horne.
Lucy was doing a needlepoint panel of a bird perched upright on a twig, with a bright black eye and a questing beak, and currently no breast. ‘It was going to be a robin but we’ve got no more red thread. I could make it into a wren now or wait till Nan goes to Waltham. What do you think?’
‘Do you enjoy embroidery, Miss Calvert?’ Lucy’s grandmother asked me.
I thought of the flowers, the white buds I’d stitched with Mother, the silk white on the rough white of the linen, which you could only see when the light fell on it a certain way. ‘Yes, Mrs Horne. But there are … so many things to do in the day.’
‘Nan sells her decorated linens at the Women’s Institute market,’ Lucy said. ‘Down the village hall on Thursdays. This one –’ she nodded at her work ‘– he’s going to market too.’
Daniel threw himself onto the couch beside us and wiped his mouth. ‘That’s the wrong shape for a wren, Luce. A wren’s a little tub with her tail cocked up.’
‘And the vicar’s only just paid Harvey Corey for the lambs,’ Mr Kennet said. ‘Took him six months. Hasn’t he, Dan? Paid your dad? Sit up, Dan, like a gentleman. These young boys, they do loll.’
Daniel ignored him, and if anything spread his long legs further. ‘Hold your horses, Lucy, and wait for the red. Mrs Horne, Ellen can eat her pie now, I’m sure.’
Underneath, the pastry was just firm enough to hold, breaking when your teeth closed on it to divulge meat and onion and juices. The lid crackled. ‘Nan does flaky li
ke no one else,’ Lucy told me.
The gas lamp fizzed. The kettle purred and Lucy filled the pot. Sleepiness dragged at my eyelids but I ate on, cramming in progressively larger bites of pie. The people in the room sat, sipping tea and digesting. Finally my plate was empty. The pansies had flecks of gilt in their centres and the edge was gilded too. I licked a finger and dabbed at the remaining flakes of pastry and put them in my mouth. Only then did Lucy’s grandmother stand up and take the plate away from me. I rose slowly to my feet, and so did Daniel and Mr Kennet, who hooked his lone finger under the handle of the egg basket and lifted it off the table.
‘George. Betty,’ he said, sliding a brimmed hat onto the back of his head over a crown of hair the colour of bleached corn.
‘Goodnight, Bill.’ Lucy’s father and grandmother spoke together.
Then Lucy’s father suddenly addressed me. ‘He had a good seat, Master Edward.’
I’d seen Mr Horne before, of course I had. Knee-deep in the waving sterns of hounds on the edge of the crowds at the Boxing Day meet, impassive as the jouncing hindquarters of my father’s dock-tailed bay hunter wheeled in front of him, and Edward’s grey pony started and stamped. A bowler-hatted man in the corner of my eye, because my gaze was on Daddy and Edward.
‘You’re the kennelman!’ Hastily I tried to cover this gauche remark. ‘Thank you for the compliment, Mr Horne. The compliment to Edward. I’ll pass it on in my next letter.’
Daniel turned to me. ‘Mr Kennet and I will walk you home.’
‘Thank you so much for the pie, Mrs Horne.’ I stepped out into the night hearing my mother’s voice, in the sing-song tone of ‘so much’, and my face burned in the darkness.
In the morning I sniffed my fingers, for the smell of gravy.
When dinner-time came at school I began going straight to the lavatories, to keep well away from Lucy so that she wouldn’t feel obliged to ask me to her house. Then I sat with Amy and Airey, the fatherless twins from the cottages by the river who, I had learned, wrote one with her right hand, the other with her left, so that they could lace their free hands together. Now that it was colder they leaned their folded arms not on their desks but on the top of the iron cage that enclosed the hearth, and laid their heads down to sleep so that by the time the others came back they each had one cheek rosy and creased from their sleeves. I’d have stayed there all night if I could.
We Must Be Brave Page 10